Research Themes +
Energy Technologies Area (ETA) researchers are continually building on the strong scientific foundation we have developed over the past 50 years. We address the world’s most pressing climate challenges by bringing to market energy-efficient innovations across the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors. ETA is at the forefront of developing better batteries for electric vehicles; improving the country's aging electrical grid and innovating distributed energy and storage solutions; developing grid-interactive, efficient buildings; and providing the most comprehensive market and data analysis worldwide for renewable technologies like wind and solar.
Strategic Initiatives +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) Strategic Plan is the guiding force for our research and development for the next ten years. It clearly charts a path toward clean-energy solutions and focuses on five detailed Strategic Initiatives. The Plan provides an in-depth look at how ETA is accelerating research to provide affordable, clean energy to all while accomplishing deep, economy-wide decarbonization, looking to avoid a rise in global average temperature while simultaneously developing solutions to increase humanity's resilience to extreme weather volatility.
Publications
News +
For media inquiries,
please contact ETA
Interim Communications Manager
Kiran Julin

kjulin@lbl.gov
About Us +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) is unique in translating fundamental scientific discoveries into scalable technology adoption. Our approach combines an understanding of the marketplace and the role of state and federal regulation and policies. ETA's research drives real-world, practical results that affect and improve the everyday lives of Americans and those across the globe. Saving energy and battling the Climate Crisis are key to the foundation of our research, which is driven by technoeconomic analysis and in-lab experimentation and discovery.

Remembering Tom Webster, 1942-2022

May 24, 2022

Tom Webster, a researcher at Berkeley Lab for more than 20 years, recently passed away at the age of 80. With a broad knowledge of engineering and his passion for sustainable energy, Tom joined the solar energy group at Berkeley Lab in 1976, contributing to nearly two dozen reports published by the Energy Technologies Area.

A beloved member of the UC Berkeley community, he joined the Center for the Built Environment upon its founding in 1997, where he was a part of pioneering cross-cutting research on energy efficiency in commercial buildings until his retirement in 2017.

Learn more about Tom's career and the lifetime of curiosity he led — including sailing to the Galapagos Islands, volunteering with the Peace Corps in Central America, and deepening his study of Buddhism and spirituality — in this obituary from the CBE.